FEMALE CANARIES DISPLAY TO SONGS OF EARLY ISOLATED MALES

We tested the sexual responsiveness of female canaries, Serinus canari a, to two sets of different types of male conspecific songs. In each s et, three of the mab songs had been recorded in a young bird which was isolated at an early age from conspecifics. Each bird was recorded du ring three stages of the song ontogeny (early plastic songs, late plas tic songs and crystallized songs). We used copulation solicitation dis plays (CSD) as an index of female sexual response. Playbacks were perf ormed during a period of natural sexual responsiveness of the females to song. We demonstrated that, in both experiments, very weak sexual d isplays of female canaries were recorded to the two stages of 'isolate ' plastic songs. Each of the two different types of 'isolate' crystall ized songs elicited high levels of CSD. These levels are not significa ntly different from the adult domesticated control song. Taken togethe r, these results suggest that even isolate songs may convey sexual inf ormation. We discuss prominent acoustic features that must be present to ensure female sexual responses.